The healthcare organization of the future

The healthcare organization of the future

The healthcare organization of the future has an external view and is extremely market and customer driven.
They are strategically agile, work customer-driven, take the lead in networking and cooperation and form a platform for customers, employees and stakeholders, making smart use of new technological possibilities.

Below we lift a corner of the veil and outline the healthcare organization of the future and the crucial role of marketing in this.

1. Fast and agile business

Circumstances are changing faster and faster and the impact of changes is increasing. Healthcare organizations have to change faster in order to survive and that is no easy task. Healthcare organizations can increase their agility in five ways: by investing in external orientation, connecting leadership, flexible work organization with self-organizing teams and flexible processes with IT support. Healthcare organizations can also increase their effectiveness by exchanging the static and often annual policy cycle for a continuous process based on a ‘rolling strategy’ in which market and customer insights are integrally included in decision-making. So doing business faster and more agile.

2. Customizable and personal

People are increasingly unpredictable in their behavior and increasingly difficult to categorize. Consumers are in contact with each other day and night via smartphone, social media, email, chat and apps. But people also behave differently in the orientation and buying process than they did years ago. Depending on the situation, people switch between different online and offline channels, between website, shop or counter and between different devices. This also applies in healthcare. A mass marketing approach is less and less suitable. Hence the focus on working with customer groups, omnichannel interaction, personalized dialogues, automated campaigns and responding quickly and flexibly (agile marketing). CRM, market and customer information, data analytics and marketing automation are becoming indispensable tools.

3. Superior customer experience

In recent years there has been increasing attention to customer experience and customer loyalty. A good customer experience across all customer processes and contact channels is crucial to winning and retaining customers. Due to increasing competition and transparency, product, price and quality are less and less distinctive in the fight for the customer. Customers are demanding and more easily switch to another provider if they are not satisfied. People are also increasingly venting their dissatisfaction on websites such as ZorgkaartNederland.nl, forums and social media. Customer processes and contact channels must be designed and optimized from the customer’s point of view and not from the product, department or available technology. With attention to digital and human contact, personalized and personal. Or ‘blended care’.

4. Customer representative

To be able to offer that superior customer experience, marketing, communication, sales, service and care and services must work together seamlessly. After all, promises must be fulfilled! This can be done by integrating marketing, communication, sales and service activities into one effective marketing department. The marketing department has frequent and proactive contact with management, line and staff management about developments, trends, opportunities, goals, strategies, priorities and actions. So that marketing, because of its expertise of markets and customers, is partly at the wheel and partly determines the course. As a ‘business partner’, the customer is closely involved in the design of customer processes and the development of products, service concepts and innovations.

5. Organization-wide alignment process

There are many marketing definitions in circulation resulting in Babylonian confusion of tongues. If we follow the developments in this regard, marketing can be defined as follows: “Marketing is a continuous coordination process in which an organization continuously tries to adapt its offer to the (changing) demand from the market and the (changing) needs of customers (care recipients, referrers). , healthcare buyers). The more turbulent the environment and the more dynamic the market, the more important this alignment process is.”

Marketing is thus an organization-wide coordination process between outside and inside. What is going on in the market and what is going on with customers? What opportunities and threats loom? Which changes should we anticipate in what way and which signals should we respond to in what way? According to this definition, marketing is not so much a department or position, but a business competence for market-oriented and customer-oriented business in the broadest sense. This business competence therefore comprises four essential building blocks, namely marketing, communication, sales (MCV) and care and services. Marketing is not something from there, but from all of us, because everyone is a marketer. From top to shop floor.

6. Integrated multidisciplinary approach

Successful entrepreneurship is only possible with an integrated multidisciplinary approach in which all the required knowledge and skills are cleverly deployed, including marketing. This is in line with the trends of integrated management and self-organization in healthcare. In the most ideal situation, market-oriented and customer-oriented thinking and working are in the DNA of the organization. In practice, this is often not or insufficiently the case. Marketing can then play a crucial role. Not only because marketing is a profession in its own right, but also because it is precisely in these rapidly changing times that marketing can act as a driver, coordinator and implementer at all levels of the organization for everything that has to do with market and customer-oriented thinking.

Are You Ready For The Future?.

If you found this information helpful, please consider sharing it with fellow healthcare professionals or leaving a comment below. Together, let’s elevate healthcare marketing practices and make a positive impact on patient care.